“The dress is the last thing that goes into the photograph. It must be like it was already there somehow. The photographs are of real families, realistic situations. It is not the fabulous, perfect, rich, pretty, successful—this is not contemporary. That is 90s, 80s, for the galloping economy. GREY makes sense today. It is younger, fresher, up to date,” Valentina Ilardi Martin says of her vision for Grey Magazine, a sumptuous compendium of fashion photography, fiction and poetry that has been published in a hardcover periodical every spring and every fall since 2009 and features photographers including Martin Parr, Nan Goldin, Sarah Moon, among many more.
The photograph comes first for Ilardi Martin, whose native Roman passion for the grandeur of everyday beauty belies each story produced in the book. She is nothing if not a womanist by nature, honoring the power and influence of the female mind, body, and heart.
She explains, “I wish to educate people on how to improve their dressing habits, what to choose to buy for the next season, how to style it with their own wardrobe and how to wear it for the best result. Every styling seen in GREY magazine is meant to be analyzed from the viewer and eventually reworked on an individual base. It’s meant to be an example that can be modified or adapted as a realistic suggestion for the upcoming season. I am not interested in a bizarre appearance. GREY is a magazine for a real, contemporary woman.
”When I plan a fashion shoot I start with the choice of the photographer. The idea will be constructed around his style, which at GREY is very precise and recognizable. I tend to keep the same contributors when possible to strengthen our visual direction. I choose photographers who are already GREY. Deborah Turbeville, Erwin Olaf, Todd Hido—they all have different styles while keeping a very defined identity and a very correct approach towards the woman. I like photographers who can understand emotions and portray the subject in front of them for what it really is. We show a great woman as an inspiration, we know them as human beings, not just as subjects for photographs. In accordance with the photographer we develop the story, the location, the casting. Sometimes the subject comes first, sometimes the place.It depends on many factors, mainly inspiration. When everything is in place, then, we think about the ideal clothes, the appearance, hair, makeup, mood. Only then. My aim and focus is now to bring to the reader something they can relate to, accept, love and be driven to, something they’ll try to emulate, because that is a selection of real, amazing, nowadays situations.”
GREY maintains a structural integrity to the construction of the photographs, collaborating in the creation of a shared reality that integrates the clothing into the photograph as though it were not so much a matter of fashion as it were the architecture of the life of the body. How we sheath and clothe, hide and seek, play dress up, how we dress to express, to impress, to pretend, to reveal who we see ourselves as.
Consider the Martin Parr portfolio of Bianca Balti and her daughter in the Spring 2013 edition of GREY, the two images where they share green eye shadow, red lipstick, and styling hair, garish as two glorious geishas who happily go about their own affairs. They are dressed, beautifully so, in creamy white tops pure as driven snow. The pleasure of dirty fingers and perfectly press clothes is just a touch of the pleasure of paging through this oversize volume.
The backstory of the shoot offers another glimpse into the pleasures of GREY. The shoot was to occur in Bristol, England, at the request of Parr. Ilardi Martin was concerned that Balti would have to leave late afternoon to fly back to Italy. She relayed this to Parr first thing the morning of the shoot and he simply replied, “Why? How many pictures do you want to take?”
When the shoot was completed at 11 a.m., they went for a leisurely lunch at an organic farmhouse. Ilardi Martin observes, “Working with Martin Parr is a dream and an achievement in my career. He is like his pictures, very dry, very English, very short. The height of his pleasure is he will say, ‘That looks fine’ about a picture he really loves. He shoots reality. There is no more fashion than reality. We show Bianca with her daughter, doing daily chores. They are dressed as Dolce & Gabbana uses the same prints for the junior collection. Parr liked it, so we made the shoot around him. Everything with Bianca and the daughter is real. She is easy going. Comes from a small town in Italy. Travels the world. This is a contemporary family. Everything is not perfect. But they have fun.”
Indeed GREY is not about the image of perfection but about the creation of our higher selves, to be the change we want to see in the world, to find beauty in the extraordinary energy of our everyday world, to live into it as an expression of life, a love for the photograph, the printed page, for the woman as a complete beauty, powerful and passionate in her many ways, fashion as the expression of her charms, a modern glamour that is accessible yet delectable. GREY is about nuance, possibility, shadows and shades in an ever-changing world.
Miss Rosen
